The Reality Letter
by Foalshan
Summary: I tried to portray them as realistically as I could, but I'm eating a cranberry muffin, so it's hard.


It was taped to his door Thursday after work. A simple, plain white envelope, unlabeled and closed with tape. He opened the door before he took it down, dropping his jacket on the couch and kicking his shoes off in the foyer. He tore it open, shaking it a bit for any suspicious actions, but it remained silent.   
  
Inside was a thin piece of paper, printer paper, clean and unsmudged. It only had print on one side, but the type was small and it ran the length of the page.   
  
It started:  
  
'Heero.'  
  
He skimmed the first paragraph and lowered the letter, licking his lower lip and thinking furiously. Then he set the letter down on the couch, turned on the air conditioning, and retrieved a bottle of whatever was closest in the sink.   
  
He sat down on the couch in an un-teenager-ly fashion, walking around the arm and letting his weight sink back into the cushion. Then he picked up the paper. The grammar was perfect, the spelling flawless.   
  
'Heero, you're perfect', it said. And, 'You're cold. And distant. Unreachable.'  
  
He folded the paper into thirds and reread the beginning, examining each word. 'I'm not good at this. I'm not a very good writer. Sorry.'  
  
He flipped to the middle section and took his time reading, savoring each line as he read it. His dark eyes were absolutely emotionless.  
  
'This is a last ditch attempt. I don't want to start something, but I do want you to know how I feel. And I feel.'  
  
The phone rang on the table beside the couch. Heero picked it up, set it back in its cradle, and then took it off the hook.   
  
'You make me nervous. I don't like being nervous, but I like you. I couldn't tell you before, and I won't tell you know. So...the letter.  
  
I don't even know why I'm writing this. It won't get ME anywhere. You won't care. This isn't something you'd be into. I'm never coming forward, so it's not an invitation. I guess I just needed to get it out.'  
  
Heero stopped reading and set the letter down. He got up and padded over to his computer, the landline with a printer and a scanner, and switched them on. They were Preventers technology, advanced stuff, and booted up quickly and efficiently. He took a yellow highlighter out of the pencup to the left of the monitor and set it next to the keyboard.  
  
Then he returned to the letter.  
  
'No matter how I treat you, you're always the same. Always the Perfect Soldier. Always Perfect. I wish, just once, you'd come down to my level. You'd lower yourself to ME. But you won't.   
  
I guess this is a love letter. Heh. Never in a million years would I imagine myself writing a love letter. Never thought I'd be in love. I don't know if I am, really. But what you make me feel...that's something I've never felt before. It's closer to love than to jealousy.   
  
Does that sound weird?  
  
This whole thing sounds weird.  
  
Awkward, you know.   
  
Maybe you should forget this. I don't know if I'll even get around to giving it to you. It might go into the pile.   
  
Sorry.'  
  
And it ended. Unsigned.  
  
Heero unfolded it and refolded it, thinking hard. He stood up and walked to the utilitarian desk chair, a stiff black thing of metal and coarse padding. He smoothed the paper out and rubbed at the creases with long fingers. The scanner lid he flipped open with his foot, laying the letter carefully inside and closing the lid. While it scanned he opened a word processing document and meticulously retyped the entire damn thing from photo-memory, watching the provoking words fly onto the screen in front of him. Heero needed a good memory for the line of work he was in. Before he'd worked for the Preventers, he'd been given assignments that allowed for only precious seconds to register documented information before he had to leave.   
  
The scanner was finished. He printed out two copies of the scanned version and one of his retype. The image, he saved onto his desktop. The word file, he saved to hard drive and to disk, setting the flimsy black square on top of the CPU where it wouldn't get lost.   
  
Then he took his copies and the highlighter back to the table and dog-eared them to differentiate them from the original, which he stored in the 'Private Files: Miscellaneous' folder of his desk drawer.   
  
He uncapped the marker with his mouth and set about to highlighting certain phrases and words he liked. He pondered them for a bit, running through a mental checklist of whom this sounded like and how he could narrow it down.   
  
The scan, he posted on the fridge. It looked good there, he mused. It wood look good there for a long time. The highlighted version he left on the table, after adding a few notes in the margin and ostentatiously crossing out the phrase 'This isn't something you'd be into.'  
  
The third copy came with him as he put his coat back on.  
  
It was an indecent hour when the maid came to announce that Mr. Yuy had arrived. Relena saved the proposal she'd been typing up and stretched her back, standing up to greet him. Heero entered the darkened room and looked her over briefly, more out of habit than sexuality.   
  
"Heero! It's late. What a-"  
  
"Did you write this?" Heero asked, holding up a square of paper. Relena frowned in thought and reached for it, but he held it back and met her eyes. "Did you write it?"  
  
Relena shrugged and held a hand out. "I don't know, Heero, I'd have to read it."  
  
Heero turned on his heel and walked out of the room.  
  
"Never mind. Thank you for your time. Good night."  
  
And he left, tucking the paper back into his jacket pocket.   
  
The office was dark when he entered. Close to nine, and everyone would have left. A single, dimly lit blue glow from Duo's 'office' betrayed at least one Preventer still putting in overtime. It wasn't an office, really, just a room for Duo to store his junk while he worked field assignments. When Heero opened the door, he jumped and knocked his own chair over. Served him right for leaning back in it.   
  
Duo picked himself up and righted the chair, mock-frowning at Heero. "Buddy. I thought you went home for the day."  
  
The screen Duo had been staring at was blank. Completely blank. The screensaver was on. The way he'd been staring, the monitor's light had probably burned its way into his eyes in the dark office. It was a miracle he could even make out who stood at the door.   
  
"What are you doing?" Heero asked.   
  
Duo hit the power button on his modem and the screen went blank, bathing the whole office in darkness. He was close to blind now, but Heero's pupils adjusted perfectly.   
  
"Whelp, I'm leavin'. Did you come back in to work?" but when he moved, he moved almost straight into Heero, who was much closer than he'd been before Duo turned off the computer. He yelped and backed up, barking his leg on the chair and throwing both hands up in defense.   
  
"Dammit, Yuy! Don't- get- " mad he stopped when Heero thrust something into his hand. It was scrap of paper, folded into a square. He paused, and then yanked his hand away like he'd been burned.   
  
The silence was deadening.  
  
"Did you write this?"  
  
Duo straightened in the dark and dragged on his 'devil-may-care' face, grinning a little sickly and hoping the darkness would mask it. "I dunno. What's it say?"  
  
But Heero was on like a cat with a soft black mouse. His warm breath puffed against Duo's cheek; he was much too close, now. Much, much too close.   
  
Duo heard the paper scrape as it was unfolded. He held up one hand, curled against his chest, in a purely defensive movement.   
  
But Heero took his hand, flattened it, and pressed all of his fingers down except his index. He touched Duo's finger to a spot about midway down the page; blank in the darkness.   
  
"This line says 'I guess this is a love letter.' Did you write that?"  
  
Duo swallowed hard and tried to pull his hand back, but Heero's grip was vise-like. When Duo stopped pulling, Heero held it like a baby bird again.   
  
"I- uh- I dunno, man. Probably not. I don't write a lotta love letters."  
  
Now Heero touched his hand to a line about an inch down. "This line says 'Never in a million years would I imagine myself writing a love letter.'" He moved Duo's hand back up the page. "This line?" Duo licked his lips. He had a good idea. "Nnnnope. Does it apply to me?"   
  
Heero released his hand. He refolded the paper and slipped it back in his left jacket pocket. "It says 'This isn't something you'd be into.'" A thread of long, chestnut hair wound around Duo's fingers. Death wouldn't be afraid.  
  
"Great. So?"  
  
Heero's knee brushed Duo's, and those little alarms that signal when someone's madly invading your personal space started shooting off behind Duo's eyes. Heero was way too close for comfort.   
  
"Do you know why I remember all those lines, Duo?"   
  
Duo said nothing. He turned his head away, but that just meant o1's hot breath trickling into his ear rather than onto his lips.   
  
"Because I'm into it."  
  
What does one say to that? A shriveled sense of self-preservation deep inside of Duo told him to excuse himself and flee down to his motorbike parked in the structure. The same sense that scolded him whenever he got into his Gundam.   
  
"Didja ask Relena? Man, she's got it for you bad. Real bad." He darted around Heero and got to the door, forcing himself to slow to a fast walk, whistling weakly. He didn't know if Heero followed him. Couldn't hear him, if he had. He walked all the way down the steps (he didn't care for elevators) past the front desk, and into the parking structure with his heart beating like a frightened rabbit's the entire time.   
  
Heero was waiting for him by his bike. The thin, buzzing yellow lights hardened his blue eyes and cast sharp shadows onto his face.  
  
"Get in my car, Maxwell."   
  
Duo made a 'make-me' face at him and took out his keys. What was he doing?  
  
When it became apparent that Heero was actually going to make him, Duo skittered away and folded his arms over his chest. Heero eyed him a bit, then walked over to his car and got in. Wait- was he leaving? Oh, no, he was just pulling the car around so Duo could get in.   
  
"I'm not getting in, YUY."   
  
Heero gave him a death stare to make any Oz affiliate back down, and Duo eventually got in his car. They peeled out of the lot at unsafe speeds and met up with Heero's apartment building in record time. He all but dragged Duo up the stairs, who chanted 'I'm not going up. I'm not going in.' the whole way.   
  
As they reached his door, Duo set his feet in.   
  
"Look. Yuy. Maybe I DID write the letter."  
  
Heero stopped and turned around, folding his arms and standing in an indolent pose, waiting for more.   
  
"What are you gonna do about it? Hit me? Scold me? Make me write an apology letter?"  
  
Heero glanced at his door. The tape was still stuck to it. He thought of the copy on his fridge.  
  
"I'm going to have sexual intercourse with you."  
  
Duo's jaw dropped.  
  
Then he had to force his brain to work again as Heero started unlocking his door. "N-no, you're not. Heero, you can't even use slang. No WAY you're going to LOWER yourself to doing it with ME. That's dirty. Incorrect. You know what God says about-" Unfortunately, and if Duo had taken the time to think about what he was saying, he would have realized he'd almost directly quoted the letter. 'You'd lower yourself to ME.'   
  
Heero grabbed his wrist and brought him forcibly into the room. He relocked the door, threw the bolt, and put the keys in his jeans. "I'm about to start lowering myself to you, Duo." He shoved him into the bathroom, the windowless, one-door bathroom in the interior of the apartment, and closed the door.  
  
"What am I doing in here?" Duo called, heavily muffled. Heero walked down to the living room and turned on the computer. "Clean up." And he left it at that.   
  
He selected the Internet Navigator and typed in what he wanted to search for. The next fifteen minutes were informational ones, punctuated with the sound of running water and dropped things from the bathroom. He felt a slight, mean buzz about his own ignorance and blocked out the part of his mind that wondered if Duo already knew about this.  
  
He switched the computer to off and entered the kitchen, looking for a hypoallergenic substitute to store-bought lubrication. He ended up with a jar of Vaseline from the first-aid kit. When he walked by the bathroom, Duo opened the door. He was still fully clothed, and he looked rather mutinous. Heero shrugged and walked into the bedroom. It was large and meticulously clean, with big windows and a perfectly made, square bed. Heero left the lights off.   
  
"So, like, now what? Are we just gonna do it on the bed?"   
  
Heero set the Vaseline down on the nightstand and pulled one pillow off the bed. "Would you prefer somewhere else? The couch, or the dresser? Or the floor?"  
  
Duo turned around and threw both hands up in an exasperated motion. "Heero, I'm NOT HAVING SEX WITH YOU."  
  
Heero stopped unbuttoning his shirt. "The letter said you wanted to."  
  
"No, it didn't, Heero! I'm beginning to wonder if you read it at all?" Heero immediately bristled, but Duo plowed on. "It did NOT say I wanted ANY KIND of romantic relationship with you. It said you were PERFECT, irreproachable, faultless. And look at you!"  
  
He gestured broadly to the Vaseline, and the unrumpled bed, and to Heero, frowning but silent by the window.   
  
"This'll be as cold and emotionless as talking to you in the office is every day! As far as I'm concerned, it will be RAPE."   
  
Heero flinched like he'd been struck.   
  
"No, it won't."  
  
"I'm sure you asked around before you found me. Did you ask Relena if she wrote it? Or Catherine? If they'd written it, you'd be here with them as easily as you're here with me. It DOESN'T MATTER with you. I'm not having sex with you, Yuy."  
  
They stared each other down for a moment. Duo looked righteous, and Heero looked injured.   
  
"Fine. Get on the bed, Ma- Duo."  
  
What? Had the fool NOT HEARD him?  
  
When it became apparent that Duo wasn't going to move, Heero stepped forward and moved him. It ALMost degenerated into a fistfight, ALMost. But twenty seconds later, Duo was lying on the bed faced away from Heero, stiff and sullen, waiting for him to start. Heero didn't start. He put his head on the same pillow Duo used and lay quietly with him while Duo thought it over. His hands were wrapped around Duo's ribcage and he pulled him closer, as close as he could before Duo's muscles tensed to fight again.   
  
"Are you going to do it, then?!" he whispered furiously.   
  
With his arms pressing into Duo's ribs, he could feel every breath the other boy took. His hips ached for the release the letter should have promised them, but he staunched the sensation and worked on easing his leg between Duo's.   
  
"No."  
  
"Are we just going to lay here like idiots? STOP DOING THAT!"  
  
Heero could feel the testy scowl on his own face but Duo couldn't see it, so it was fine. He desperately wanted to snap the band on the long braid between their bodies but he didn't feel safe in letting his midsection go to do it.  
  
"You could talk to me. And...tell me more things about the letter. I'd...I'd...I'd let you up, if you wanted to write another letter."   
  
He let Duo chew on that one for a bit, and debated whether or not he should try and press his forehead into Duo's hair. He decided against it, in case Duo was particular about his hair. Maybe he'd do after they'd both relaxed a bit.  
  
"Fuck off."  
  
Heero pressed his wrist over Duo's heart and worked on matching the beats.  
  
"Go to sleep, Duo." 


End file.
